The topical application of compositions to the surfaces of both animate and inanimate objects to effect a desired change involve the processes of controlling wetting, spreading, flow, leveling, foaming, detergency, and the like. When used in aqueous solutions to improve the delivery of active ingredients to the surface being treated, trisiloxane-containing polyether compounds have been found to be useful in enabling the control of these processes to achieve the desired effect. However, the trisiloxane-containing polyether compounds may react with water or the other components in the coating and ink compositions to generate low levels of organosilicone materials. These organosilicone materials are released into the environment, interfere with the leveling and flow and generate coated objects that have non-uniformity and poor appearance, often referred to as “fish-eyes”.
In recent years, there has been a move to waterborne coatings and inks in place of solvent-borne coatings from the viewpoints of resource savings and environmental pollution. For example, waterborne coatings have been investigated for primer coatings, base coatings and top coatings for automobiles. Waterborne coating and inks wet surfaces poorly, due to their higher surface energy and often have poor flow-and-leveling properties. A need for wetting and level-and-flow agents for waterborne coatings having the feature of imparting low surface energy to the coatings and inks without generating undesirable silicone materials exists. In order to meet this requirement, acryl base polymers, modified silicone oils and the like have so far been used as flow-and-leveling agents. However, satisfactory wetting and flow-and-leveling properties and elimination of coating defects are not necessarily achieved with these conventional techniques, especially in the fields requiring a high level of appearance for uses such as automobiles. So either large concentrations of organic surfactants or specialty perfluoroalkyl functionalized surfactants with very low surface tension are typically added in order to obtain a good appearance. One of the issues with using very high concentrations of organic surfactants is the adverse effect that it exerts on other properties of coatings, such as layer-to-layer adhesive properties in recoating or roughening the surfaces of the recoated films.
Conventional organic surfactants provide only an inadequate solution to the leveling problem in the case of coatings, and there is a need for new surfactants that make it possible to produce absolutely smooth coating films. Alternatively, specialty fluoro-based surfactants are facing pressures from toxicological and bioaccumulation fronts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to tighten regulation of such perfluoroalkyl materials that have the potential of breaking down into toxic perfluoroalkyl carboxylates, such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluoroalkyl sulfonates, including perfluorooctanyl sulfonate (PFOS). These substances are expected to bioaccumulate, persist in the environment, and may be considered “highly toxic”. Also, studies suggest that perfluoroalkyl sulfonates and carboxylates may get released in the air when items made with certain fluoropolymers are burned in municipal waste incinerators.
Accordingly, the identification of non-fluorinated surfactants that can avoid environmental and health concerns is of interest. The present invention, which describes the utility and application of coating and ink compositions containing silylated polyether compounds, which are expected to provide improved appearance, flow, leveling and wetting benefits, while helping to avoid such potential environmental and health concerns.